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Image: Sergio Betancort
The Assembly Hall of the Cabildo of Lanzarote hosted on the afternoon of this Friday, October 4, the Academic Act of Inauguration of the 2013-2014 academic year of the Associated Center of the UNED on the island of volcanoes (National University of Distance Education). A ceremony presided over by the Vice-Rector of Associated Centers, Tomás Fernández García; which also included the presence of the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Pedro San Ginés, also president of the Board of Trustees of the Associated Center of the UNED on the island; of the director of the Associated Center of Lanzarote, Irene Betancort; of the former magistrate of the Supreme Court, José Antonio Martín Pallín; the mayor of Arrecife, Manuel Fajardo Feo; and the secretary of the Center, Andrés Fajardo Palarea.
It was precisely Martín Pallín who was in charge of giving the inaugural lecture, entitled 'Hollow Democracies', which put in black and white many of the keys to the economic, political, social and labor farce that we are experiencing, arousing great interest in the capacity of the Hall. During the act, a summary of the previous year's report was made public and the director of the Lanzarote Center presented the most important projects that will be developed during the current academic year, thanks to numerous agreements recently reached and pursued for years from the Center she directs.
After the presentation of diplomas accrediting the completion of studies to the thirteen graduates and diploma holders in the 2012/13 academic year, the act closed with the intervention of the capital's mayor, the president of the Cabildo and the vice-rector of Associated Centers.
With a positive tone, with a marked character of gratitude, but not without demands, the director of the Associated Center of Lanzarote, Irene Betancort, started more than one smile and also applause. She defined the act as "a meeting to share the illusion of a new course, with the strength to overcome difficulties and renewed spirits to look ahead", when the institution celebrates 40 years on the island, despite the fact that the building that houses them already has many ailments...
Betancort pointed out that "this has been a year of many achievements, although most of them come from many years of work and insistence. Achievements for which I have much to be grateful. To the Education and Culture Area of the Cabildo, for the training program for the elderly; to the San Bartolomé City Council, for its collaboration to reinforce language teaching; to the city councils of Arrecife, Teguise and Tías... And in general to everyone. To the UNED staff, the president of the Cabildo, the secretary of the UNED and the vice-rector..." And the director concluded with a firm demand: "A new headquarters for the UNED in Lanzarote, on the campus or in the Congress Palace".
The capital's mayor, the next to speak, was brief and referred to a note made by Martín Pallín with the recognition of "a mistake we made here in the Canary Islands, which was not having let Nelson in and not having kicked Franco out". Likewise, Fajardo pointed out that "never before in Spain has there been greater deterioration of democracy and we owe this to whom we all already know..." "A deterioration -he added- that is only compensated and broken with training, with education. For this reason, as long as we are in charge of the Consistory, we will continue to support the UNED".
The president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, began his speech by pointing out that "as president of the Board of Trustees of the Associated Center of the UNED, I am pleased with the high level of collaboration that the Cabildo of Lanzarote has always had with the National Distance University, and in the same way, I thank and celebrate the participation of the other institutions".
San Ginés made two points in his speech. One to refer to his "desire for spatial unification of all higher education studies based on the island, including the UNED, considered by many to be the university of Lanzarote"; the other, to exemplify "in the Council of the Biosphere Reserve the model of participatory democracy to which the magistrate referred in his inaugural lecture".
Likewise, and equally without intending to disagree with the jurist's speech, the president of the Cabildo did raise a difference of opinion. "I do not believe -he pointed out- that democracy has died. As Iñaki Gabilondo pointed out last year in this same forum and on the occasion of the inauguration of the 2012 course, in this crisis politics is part of the problem but it is also part of the solution. For this reason, rather than a minute of silence, I am betting on a call to society".
'Hollow Democracies'
José Antonio Martín Pallín has been a prosecutor and magistrate of the Supreme Court, as well as a member of various human rights organizations and is also part of the Council of the Biosphere Reserve of Lanzarote. In his inaugural lecture, the jurist presented a sketch of the current Spanish democracy "not only as a set without anything behind it, but as a set that is also collapsing little by little", in addition to leaving numerous 'lapidary' phrases in this regard such as "let's stand up, let's observe a minute of silence for Spanish democracy and then we'll talk about something else...", he pointed out indignantly.
In this line, the distinguished jurist outlined the different fronts "that are ending the rule of law", as well as the possible ways to channel it such as "achieving a more participatory and deliberative democracy among all". His speech did not lack destructive examples such as "vulture funds that request the annulment of an appeal by the Junta de Andalucía so that many families who are on the street can occupy the empty homes that belong to the banks"; or that "basic civil rights as they emanated from the French Revolution have remained only on paper because citizens have run out of legal resources to enforce them".
However, Martín Pallín left a door open to hope with the "reaction of some judges, who have felt obliged to take action and have acted in favor of citizenship, for example by annulling evictions, declaring floor clauses illegal and thereby annulling many mortgages". The magistrate also pointed out "the appearance of citizen movements considered intruders by the traditional governmental power that is based on the supposed legitimacy of its absolute majority. And 10 million votes are not democracy, they are only statistics. Democracy is something more than that..." Reasoning that he underlined by recalling that "Hitler also obtained an absolute majority in some elections".
"Another fundamental ingredient of this dwindling democracy is labor law, which has also disappeared. It has evaporated. This manifest imbalance can lead us to a social outburst in the form of civil disobedience", he commented. And Martín Pallín also pointed out in his speech details such as "governmental immobility regarding a necessary reform and updating of the Magna Carta" and "the destruction of the public sector as a slogan championed by the EU and by Merkel, inherited from Reagan and Tatcher. A destruction of the public that, as has been seen in Russia, has generated an exorbitant enrichment of an elite that now invests in football".
The former prosecutor concluded his inaugural lecture with a positive, hopeful message, such as the convenience of "refloating our democracy by straightening it out, as they have done in Italy with the Costa Concordia cruise ship, stranded after the shipwreck suffered a year ago, and moving towards a more participatory version in which citizens feel protected by the system".